It's All Relative
by Asynca
Summary: Long WIP, F/F. Bayonetta tells us a dark story about right versus wrong and who gets the ultimate say in the definition. It turns out there's nothing that makes the matter clearer than a little death, self-sacrifice and vengeance.
1. Prologue

It's All Relative

By Asynca

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><p>~Prologue~<p>

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><p>I would have thought that after all that drama surrounding the so called 'Eyes of the World', that fate would have left me alone to go about my business in peace. After all, I'd had quite a lot of adventure in the few decades I'd been conscious, and there had certainly been a lot revolving around me even when I was <em>un<em>conscious. Fate should have been thoughtful enough to share the excitement around a bit and give someone else the chance to have their life in peril for while. Unfortunately, I've always been rather polarizing: people either adore me or absolutely despise me. I'm not entirely sure which of these schools Fate subscribes to, but however she thought of me, she certainly seemed determined to tie me up and mercilessly whip me until there's not a drop of life left in my veins.

Well, I suppose I do make a rather attractive glutton for punishment, so I can't say I blame her.

What I can say on reflection, however, is that my story could do with a lot fewer righteous tirades and a lot more shooting. And perhaps several more very attractive, very naughty enemies. A story can _always_ do with a few more of those, however many there already are. Can you imagine how much sexier and more entertaining _Pride and Prejudice_ would have been if everyone were half-naked and oiled up, and there had been one or two half-naked, oiled-up gunfights in the plot?

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but my story doesn't have any half-naked, oiled-up gunfights. There is, however, rather a lot of tying up and whipping, and far too many righteous tirades courtesy of my regal lover. I suppose if you're raised as a princess, old habits die hard.

It's with one of her many righteous tirades that this particular story begins, actually. Apologies about needing to bore you with the rather embarrassing details, but it really sets the scene very nicely.

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><p>"Cereza."<p>

Here we go, I thought, looking up from my lovely comfortable position on our couch in my pyjamas. I had been quietly minding my own business, trying to get a certain Channel 10 newsreader to call me dirty names on international media. I nearly had her, too: just one more little, innocent question about the fidelity of her husband and she'd have been tweeting all sorts of horribly offensive things that she'd later have to pretend to be remorseful about. I wondered if I'd manage to tear up for interviews.

"Cereza, leave that poor woman alone and do the washing up."

I rolled my eyes, reaching around me to find one of my beloved pistols. I pointed it at the sink, stacked high with dirty dishes. It had been 'my turn' for several days, it seemed. "She called me 'whorish'."

Jeanne's stomach, in a spotless satin chemise, stepped in between my gun and the tower of crockery. "When you gallivant around the city after dark, terrorizing the law-abiding citizens, you should expect to hear apt descriptions of your behaviour reported on the news." The gun was neatly plucked from my hand before I managed to take care of the dishes. "And being called 'whorish' has never bothered you before."

"It doesn't really bother me now," I told her, making a half-hearted attempt to snatch my pistol back. "She's just deliciously amusing to bait, and being called 'whorish' seems like a reasonable excuse to do so." And, besides, it wasn't exactly 'terrorizing law-abiding citizens' to tail a very naughty mayor to find out if he were up to anything interesting. Only one car had crashed, after all, and it wasn't like anyone had been hurt.

Jeanne very calmly placed it just out of my reach on the coffee table. "A very noble pursuit and such a productive use of your talents." She crossed her arms, looking directly at me over the top of her glasses.

I groaned. "Oh, not _that_ old shoe again." I pretended to turn my attention back to my laptop. "'So much potential', 'a waste of your abilities', etcetera, etcetera..." When she didn't move, I added, perhaps a little inflammatorily, "Jeanne, it seems to have escaped your attention that you're not _my_ teacher, so it shouldn't bother you what I do with my _own_ talents in my spare time."

But clearly it did, and now I would need to sit quietly while Jeanne subjected me to an overly romantic, grand tale about the heroism of the Umbra and what it meant to be a witch. I watched her pace theatrically through the living room, an animated silhouette against the New York skyscrapers and morning sun through the window. When she was done recounting what felt like the entire history of the Umbra to me, she moved on to some declarations about power being a gift we should use for the benefit of humanity, and then segwayed in to a conclusion about how wasting my time was some enormous slight on the entire history of all of the Umbra. Naturally she left out the part where the Umbran order had always been content to imprison me, exclude me and generally treat me like scum of the earth.

When she was finished, she stood authoritatively in the centre of the room with one hand on a slender hip, apparently waiting for me to concede I was horribly wrong and apologize.

"You know," I observed instead, "you'd be far more attractive if you just shut up once in a while."

"Oh!" Jeanne threw her hands up in the air in frustration, and marched out of the room. "Why should I even have expected _anything_ more of you?" I could hear her saying aloud from the adjoining kitchen.

Why, indeed, I thought. I was bothered by the whole affair, but didn't care to dwell on why. I had a reporter to play with. I happily spammed refresh, waiting for her to reply to my latest tweet.

I didn't look up when I heard water pouring from the taps, and the sound of crockery being angrily dumped into the sink. Jeanne always did enjoy playing the part of the tortured hero, so it would have been positively cruel for me to obediently do the dishes and deny her the opportunity to exaggerate her self-sacrifice. That was my excuse, anyway. I was probably just being lazy, but what was the problem, really? They were _just dishes. _It wasn't like there were starving orphaned babies in the kitchen I was refusing to feed. Jeanne had absolutely _no_ perspective.

"You know, Cereza," Jeanne's voice said over the sound of dishes banging in the sink, "I didn't come all the way to New York to be your maid."

"Of course not," I said, "you came because Braithwaite College offered you a position on their board." I knew that had nothing to do with the reason we had moved here; I had missed New York horribly and Jeanne had been kind enough to give up her beloved job and move here with me. When Jeanne glanced at me from the sink and I accidentally looked up from pretending to be enthralled by my laptop, we locked eyes for a moment. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach.

"Are you going out tonight?" she calmly asked me, turning her attention back to the plates. She already knew I would be, so I had to assume her question was more of the guilt-tripping variety than an actual genuine request for information.

"You could come with me," I said. I only half-meant it, though, because she disliked my new friends and would spend the whole time looking askance at me about why we were there.

She made a non-committal, disapproving noise, the type of which is trademarked by teachers everywhere. I felt suddenly incredibly angry that for all she claimed to love me, she never approved of anything I did or gave me any freedom.

"Well, wherever _you_ go tonight," I said a little dangerously, standing and placing the laptop beside my Scarborough Fair on the coffee table, "perhaps you should wear your little nun outfit. You certainly play the part very well."

She very calmly removed her rubber gloves, and stared silently down at them for a moment. She then approached me, placing a warm hand on my cheek. "I just want the best for you," she said simply, and I could have slapped that paternalistic smile off her face.

I shook my head out of her touch. "No, you want what_ you_ think is best for me, and have little to no regard for what _I_ want and enjoy!"

She took a long, deep breath. "Have fun with the mafia," she said finally. "I'm sure they definitely love you and want the best for you. I bet they'd even wait five hundred years for you."

I fought a very strong urge to riddle her with bullets. I felt a pleasant nostalgia for when we'd had guns pointed at each other's faces.

So be it, I thought, squinting at her as she walked away. That night I would go out and get exceedingly drunk with whoever I liked and do a large number of items on the ridiculously long list of Things Jeanne Disapproves Of, since that was clearly what she expected of me. I'm sure being right would give her the satisfaction she so clearly sought.


	2. Chapter One

It's All Relative

By Asynca

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><p>~ONE~<p>

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><p>One of the pitfalls of being a witch is the sheer volume of alcohol I need to consume to get drunk. So, in order to get drunk to an appropriately rebellious level, I need to occasionally resort to relying on charitable donations to my cause. Fortunately, they were never hard to find in the Gates of Hell, which had conveniently set up franchise in New York around the time I had moved there. According to Rodin, Vigrid's remaining citizens weren't exactly flocking to drink themselves into a stupor into the ruins of their beloved city.<p>

That evening, my benefactor was a man Enzo introduced to me as Bert or Bob or something to that effect. It hardly mattered what his name was, as long as he kept the vodka flowing and looked handsome while doing it.

"Hey, hey, hey!" A chubby hand made a grab for my shot glass and missed by, well, a long shot. "What's that, now, your sixth? Seventh? Leave some fucking grog for the rest of us, eh?"

It was my twelfth, actually, but I don't think that was the point he was trying to make. "Get your own sugar daddy, Enzo," I said, holding the glass just out of his reach and not slurring my words enough for my liking. "It would be awfully rude of me to give you any of _my_ drink, seeing as it was so kindly bought for me by this gentleman here."

My tubby friend smacked the washboard stomach of the man in question. "You hear that, Bill? You're a fucking gentleman now. Someone should break the news to your wife."

'Bill' grinned at this suggestion, displaying two neat rows of very nicely tended teeth and a gold crown. "And my mistress."

"And your ex-wife," another one of Enzo's new friends suggested. "Wherever she is these days."

"Six feet under," Bill said neutrally. I raised my eyebrows as he elaborated. "She and my brother were a little too well-acquainted."

Since it wasn't possible for my eyebrows to be any further into my hairline, I took a casual sip from my shot glass. "Well, make sure you never introduce me to your brother, I've spent quite enough time in a coffin this lifetime."

"It wouldn't be possible for me to introduce you to my brother unless you felt like spending more time with coffins." He winked at me.

As Enzo's friends in 'the business' tended to be fiercely loyal to their families, I sincerely doubted he'd actually been the one to kill his own brother. However, my experience of these men was that they just _loved_ to bicker amongst themselves over who was the most cold-hearted criminal. An odd competition, if you ask me, but whatever floats your boat. Perhaps he thought I would find the whole 'bad boy' act attractive. Not sure about attractive, exactly, but it was certainly rather amusing.

"Pity," I said with the same twinkle in my eye, "if you're anything to go by, I'm sure he was quite a catch."

He flashed that bright grin at me again. It looked as if I'd have plenty of alcohol all night if this man were paying for me.

"Where's that lady friend of yours, Bayonetta?" Rodin asked me pointedly from behind the bar.

The mention of Jeanne irritated me, as if she'd found some subtle way to ruin my fun by proxy. "Out saving the world, I expect," I said sarcastically.

"Damn shame," he said. "That is one fine lady." He leant heavily on the word 'fine' to exaggerate his appraisal of her. At my expression, he added, "If you don't mind me sayin'."

I did mind, but not for the reason he thought I would. Clearly, if thoughts of Jeanne still bothered me, it would take quite a few more shots before I was sufficiently drunk enough to enjoy the evening.

I put my glass flat on the table, cuing Bill to refill it, which he very obediently did. "'Lady friend'?" he repeated, with the usual level of curiosity I encountered.

"Yes, on the odd occasion when we're not fighting we sleep in the same bed," I clarified, "but the next person who mentions her gets a boot in the face."

They all laughed. "Good call." Enzo raised his own empty glass. "Cheers to not having any fucking wives ruining our fun tonight."

"I'll drink to that," Bill said, lifting his glass to me. I briefly considered his thinly veiled offer – he was rather handsome, I suppose – but decided I couldn't be bothered with all the drama that would inevitably result.

"So," Enzo said, setting his glass on the bar as if he'd just drunk from it. "What's on the cards tonight, boys? A little, shall we say, reconnaissance? Or perhaps a little reappropriation of assets?"

Bill glanced back at the two men perched on stools beside him. They all smiled knowingly at each other. "A little of column 'A', a little of column 'B'," one of the men said darkly. He then nodded at me. "We were hoping to borrow your very talented associate."

_I see_, I mouthed, feigning surprise. "What do you say, Enzo?" I asked casually, pretending I wasn't particularly interested.

He played along. "Well, I don't know," he said. "She's veeeery busy these days."

"Oh, yes, very busy." I leant on one elbow, crossing my legs at my leisure. Rodin glanced at me from the sink, grinning as he hosed down some glasses. "I just don't know _where_ I'd find the time to fit any extra work in," I said, shaking my head.

Enzo leaned forward on the bar between Bill and me, his own elbows hardly reaching it. "That is, unless there's a little something in it for us from those columns."

"Actually, a rather big something would be better." I grinned at Bill. "I have no interest in _little_ things."

Bill shot me a very charming smile. "Oh, I've got plenty to offer you," he promised, and then dropped the double-entendre. Pity, really, I had been enjoying it. "The Agostino brothers have some books I'm very interested in. I'd like to borrow them."

That name sounded familiar. I tapped my chin, thinking. "Agostino? As in, Agostino Diamonds?"

He nodded once.

_That_ brought a smile to my face. "I am rather fond of pretty things," I said, suddenly feeling immensely better about my evening. "But it will take a few more drinks before I can truly appreciate them."

Enzo was practically salivating. "Keep the drinks coming, Rodin!" he called, as if he were the one paying for them.

By midnight there was so much alcohol in me I thought that the next time Enzo lit a cigarette I might spontaneously combust. It was at that point that Bill declared we were all going for a scenic drive downtown.

Walking was no great bother, but I struggled to neatly fold myself on the way into Bill's Lexus. When I heard the sound of my head thumping against the passenger side doorway, it was a pleasure not to feel it at all.

"You sure you're right to go?" Bill looked sidelong at me as he fastened his seatbelt. It was the first time he'd spoken to me without flirting, and it was interesting to hear genuine concern in his voice. Interesting but potentially annoying, because it would be awfully tiresome if anyone were to fall for me.

"Nah, this bird does her best work completely fucking wasted," Enzo declared, struggling to speak without his words running into each other.

I smirked. "I think Enzo's the one you've got to worry about," I managed to tell Bill. "I do hope you carry sick bags in here."

I doubted my own clear-headedness only for a moment when the car began to transform around me, until I realized Bill's Lexus was a convertible and he was retracting the roof.

The ride was extremely pleasant; there's something lullaby-esque about reclining in the passenger seat of a convertible while you're extremely drunk. It was a warm July evening and the air was full of all the predictable aromas: cigarettes, exhaust and fast-food outlets (actually, some deliciously oily fries would have gone down quite well just then). It all smelt so familiar to me, and I appreciated being back in the familiar surroundings of New York. I crossed my ankles on the dashboard and closed my eyes, my hair billowing around me.

While I was swimming in an alcoholic sea of contentment, the car suddenly stopped. It was probably good timing, actually, because I was nearly falling asleep.

Bill's hand was on my shoulder, I realized, and he was pointing upwards. "Up there," he said, "their office is up there." It took me a moment to remember what exactly I was doing at the base of a skyscraper and who was in the car with me.

I followed the line of his arm upwards to what must have surely been the twentieth or twenty-first floor.

"You sure you're fine to get up there?"

I scoffed. "I'm a witch," I told him, as if that answered the question.

Holding up a Scarborough Fair, I drew a filigree in the air and launched myself through it. The ground rushed away from me, and for one dizzying moment I felt like I was actually dropping to the bottom of a pool instead of flying upwards through the air. Adrenaline coursed through me, quickly enough for me to take my bearings and land somewhat solidly on a fire escape. Aware my powers were never one hundred percent trustworthy when I was drunk and not concentrating, a put one foot very carefully against the wall to make sure I was secure before I defied gravity by stepping sideways onto it. From there it was a short run to the correct window, which I smashed in a flurry of gold sparkles as I dropped through it. Switching to stand on the floor again, I found myself in the centre of a dark office.

A security alarm had gone off somewhere, but in Purgatorio I was safe from the glare of security cameras so it was of little consequence to me. The security guards would take a good fifteen minutes to even show up anyhow, as who on earth would suspect a break-in on the twenty first floor?

The space was large, spacious and modern. As men who went into this sort of business tended to favour pay-by-the-month, off-the-books rental spaces that belonged to a friend of a friend, I had become rather accustomed to poking around dank little back-water officers with torn carpet and mould creeping in through the ceiling. The Agostino brothers couldn't have had a more different setting for their business model: no one entering these offices could possibly have thought they were up to anything. There were even romantic, airbrushed advertisements for wedding rings up on the walls. I found myself rather impressed.

Judgments aside, I supposed I'd better start working. Without a second thought, I shot through a door into the largest office, missing at first and leaving a spray of bullet holes on the wall. The cedar table in the centre of the room was innocuous enough, but I stubbed my toe on it as I flipped it over. As a measure of revenge I shot it into tiny smithereens but found nothing of consequence inside.

The filing cabinet was another matter; it had a hidden compartment underneath one of the drawers which was full of 1950s-style accounting books. It seemed crooks everywhere were as ridiculously technophobic as always. Since I was the one doing all the hard work, I thought I might as well have a little peek inside. What I found were an elaborate series of double-entries with very suspicious annotations. Even in my inebriated state I could see they were a work of criminal art. "My, my," I trailed my eyes down the pages, "you have been a pair of _naughty_ boys, haven't you?"

One of the annotations read, "rear storage cab, 15oz". I had spotted an archive room running off the main office space, and I suspected I might find answers within it. I was right. 'Cab', obviously referred to 'Cabinet', and '15oz' referred to the approximate weight of skimmed diamonds I found in a flatpack inside it. I held up the flatpack to the moonlight, admiring the very satisfying refraction of light within. I supposed I would have to share them around, unfortunately. They were all lucky I was always so exceedingly generous, despite being constantly imposed on to do all their dirty work.

My trip out of the building with the flatpack and the books was unfortunately interrupted by an angelic glow and four horribly ugly faces. I stared at them for a moment; it seemed rather odd they were out this hour when I'd done nothing at all to provoke them. Normally I needed to practically load myself up with flashing neon lights to draw any sort of attention out from Paradiso. In fact, I hadn't been attacked without provocation since my foray in Vigrid. Very odd, indeed.

"_Your sins end here, Bayonetta,_" one of them bleated at me. I raised my eyebrows and my gun, and shot him in the face.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I told the other three, "but as you can see I'm rather busy and not really in the mood for a play date."

Naturally they made an attempt on me anyway, and despite my skyrocketing blood alcohol level I dispatched them easily in midair on the way back down to street level.

I landed in the passenger seat of the car, feathers drifting down from the sky around me. The men shouted and startled, looking around them for the cause of the noise and the movement. I exited Purgatorio, smiling smugly and holding up the books and the flatpack. The tattered books I gave to Bill, but the diamonds I held out of everyone's reach until I'd had the opportunity to select the ones I most wanted. When I was done I tossed the rest into the backseat for others to swarm over like vultures.

Bill had much the same reaction to the books as I'd had, giving me some insight into his motivation for stealing them by murmuring, "Hiding profits from your own sponsor, Aldo Agostino." He tut-tutted. "How very unappreciative of you." I wondered if at a later date I would be required to pay Aldo a little visit to have a casual chat about his creative record-keeping.

While Enzo and the other two men were scrambling clumsily over the diamonds lodged in the carpet of the Lexus, Bill nodded at the glove box. "There's a little, shall we say, thank you present in there for you." I raised an eyebrow, opening the compartment and wondering what I'd find. My fingers closed around a smooth, glass bottle that I lifted into the streetlights as Bill pulled away from the curb. The elaborate gold label read 'Macallan'. I turned it over, examining it with curiosity.

"Most expensive whisky in this whole city," he explained, sounding very pleased with himself. "Won it at an auction recently. Enjoy."

I must have, because before I knew it, I was using every skerrick of consciousness left to fit my key into my front door. While I was fumbling with the lock, the door unexpectedly swung open and I fell inelegantly in a pile on the floor inside. A pair of very slender, attractive calves obscured my view down the hallway. They were wearing beautifully embroidered stockings, and I reached out to experimentally touch one leg of them. The pattern was like glorious tropical flowers, and felt smooth under my fingertips.

The sound of a throat very pointedly clearing reminded me whose legs I was touching. "Have a rather good night, did we?" She didn't sound very impressed.


	3. Chapter Two

It's All Relative

By Asynca

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><p>~Two~ (with apologies to The Extreme Piercing)<p>

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><p>"Depends on your definition of 'good', as to whether or not I had a good night," I said philosophically, managing to roll over onto my back while the floor swam around me. "If by 'good' you mean a night where everyone was ever so nice to me and I can't remember a thing after one a.m., then yes," I looked up a pair of ridiculously long legs, "I can see up your skirt." It wasn't the way I had been expecting to end that sentence, but it was certainly a far more <em>interesting<em> place to take the topic. I stretched out under here and looped an elbow around her bare ankle.

She arched an immaculate eyebrow at me, and stepped easily out of my grasp. "What a terrible pity there's nothing up there for you," she said in the lowest possible register of her voice, spinning and sauntering back down the hallway. That was a scandalously short skirt, I decided, watching it sway into the living room.

I was still on the floor.

Oh, this was ridiculous, I was a witch. I could hold my alcohol well enough to be upright, at least. I scrambled around on the floor boards until I was perched vertically on my heels again. I even managed to navigate the hallway into the living room.

Jeanne had seated herself at the kitchen table, with two large piles of what looked like horribly boring schoolwork. Just looking at it nearly put me to sleep. Jeanne, however, had a pen as red as her glasses and had resumed going to town with it.

She didn't look up as I staggered in.

"So very kind of you to open the door but not help me in," I commented, forging stoically across to the kitchen to see if any leftovers had been conveniently left within picking range.

"I had no intention of helping you," Jeanne said dryly. "I just couldn't bear to hear your infernal giggling and scrabbling with the keys a moment longer."

I perked up immediately when on inspection I found cuttings from a roast chicken wrapped on a plate in the refrigerator. I tore a hole in plastic wrap and pulled off all the lovely seasoned skin. "What are you doing up at this hour, anyway?" I wondered aloud, stuffing my takings into my mouth. "What is it, four? Five?"

"Lost your ability to read a clock? Or is it just far too much work to bother leaning all the way out of the refrigerator to look at it?"

I wasn't as if I needed to lean all the way anywhere, so I just peeked over the fridge door and waited for my eyes to focus. As it turned out, it was only three-fifteen. Still, it was rather a late night for Ms. Bossy Britches. "I seem to recall you constantly harping on about this 'honest work' that you disappear to every day. Shouldn't you be—"

Something was wrong. Under ordinary circumstances I would have been able to tell exactly what, but heavily inebriated all I could do was freeze. Jeanne was much faster: she was already between me and the window and had knocked something aside that had been about to hit me. When I was able to get my bearings, a transparent silhouette of her was walking away from me towards the balcony, shooting.

When whatever it was had died, Jeanne looked over her shoulder at me. "Do you do this deliberately to bait me?" she asked.

"What, nearly get killed? Oh, yes. Entirely on purpose: it's a favourite pastime of mine."

She sighed, ignoring my sarcasm. "You know I _hate_ it when you bring these creatures home. It's as if you want to somehow force me to shoot my favourite furniture."

Now _there's_ an idea I wished I'd had myself. What a delicious irony, Jeanne shooting her beloved antiques. However, that unfortunately wasn't what had happened. "Not that it wouldn't be simply hilarious to watch you do that," I said, reaching the portal to Purgatorio and managing to climb precariously through it, "but I didn't 'bring them' anywhere."

For a moment her expression remained accusatory, but when mine didn't change it softened ever so slightly. "You mean to say you _didn't_ call them here?"

I corrected my glasses. "I suppose you'll just have to find another reason to scold me."

"Won't that be difficult," she said impassively, turning back to the rising glow coming from the window. "Don't you dare shoot anything," she told me as she walked away. "You're infinitely more likely to take your own head off than kill anything else." She approached the glass balcony doors and opened each of them against the walls and out of the way. "Additionally, at this point I think you'll ignite if a gun is fired near you."

Three svelte figures materialized on the balcony. Oh, Joy, I thought ironically, amused by my own delicious double-entendre.

"_The end is near,_" one of them said monotonously. It was strange, actually, as in my experience Joy didn't tend sermonize the way some of the other angelic monsters did. She certainly wasn't usually given to doomsaying.

Jeanne glanced back at me, a slight frown on her face. She got straight back to business, though, and flicked her glasses onto her forehead. "Yes, pleasure to see you again, too," she said in false merriment, and then fired several rounds at the figures, who scattered in formation.

I watched, always finding it highly entertaining when Jeanne fought in street clothes. I could never really be bothered with them; they constantly got dirty and needed to be washed, and at the worst possible moment they always seemed to tear in choice places. I thought it a waste of time to bother wearing anything but my hair suit, really. What's the point of being a witch if you don't have these free perks to make life ever so much easier?

However, with Jeanne it was a different matter. In fact, I could hardly remember the last time she even used her hair suit. Tonight was no exception, and for once I wasn't secretly annoyed by her insistence on wearing mortal clothes. The reason was that simply wonderful little skirt. Every time she fell through the air, it blew up over her lower back and stomach and afforded me a simply delightful view of her French knickers. As it also turned out, the embroidered tights weren't actually tights at all, but suspenders. To complete the fantasy, Jeanne had three figures of Joy all launching themselves at her and moaning as if they were in a cheap porn movie.

Since I was beside the living room lights, I dimmed them for effect.

Jeanne scowled at me, dodging a whip by dispersing into cloud of fluttering moths for a second. "Do you mind?" she complained, "I would rather like to see what I'm shooting."

I admired my handiwork as moonlight and the occasional flash of sparkles highlighted all the sumptuous curves in my living room. I certainly was a very lucky girl. "Oh, but it's so much _sexier_ like this," I said. "And I can't let you have all the fun."

"Well, if you absolutely _must _get involved, perhaps you could entertain the one that's about to—" All the lights switched off, leaving only the bulb in the fridge on. "—turn off the lights," Jeanne finished, flatly. "And thank you ever so much for giving it ideas."

Something smashed, and I could hear the sound of Joy moaning and quick footsteps toward me. Just as my hand flicked the switch on the wall and the room was once again visible, something connected very solidly with my head. I flew back against the kitchen bench, which must have been quite a distance behind me, and crumpled on the floor again. In the distance, I could hear Jeanne shouting my name as I clutched my head and willed myself to remain conscious.

Once again Jeanne was quickly beside me, lifted me up into her arms and looked down at me with concern.

As my head cleared, I looked toward my saviour. She smiled radiantly down at me, gentle and sweet. A soft, unassuming hand stroked my throbbing brow.

Horrified, I shot her in the face.

It must have been the final straw, because she dissolved in a cloud of sparkles. They clung to me as I heaved myself upright using the bench. I looked back at the real Jeanne, righting my glasses with the nose of my pistol and smiling somewhat smugly.

"Lucky shot," Jeanne said, trying not to look relieved. "Do try not to step into the fray, would you? It's difficult to save you when they're all trying to get a piece of me."

"I wouldn't blame them, if I were you. Any self-respecting creature should be trying to ravish you while you're wearing that skirt." If only she were just a little bit higher than me... "Would you like to borrow my wooden horse?" I offered, thinking of the spectacular view it would afford me. "It's really very fun to play with Joy on it."

"No, thanks," Jeanne said, landing an insipidly terrestrial boot directly in the last figure's face and causing it to disintegrate. "I'm trying to avoid using attacks that might damage the rug."

"Spoilsport." I folded my arms, smiling.

The fight having apparently ended, Jeanne reached up to smooth her hair and correct her clothing. The evening's floor show had caused a pleasant glow to rise to her cheeks and she was breathing heavily. Her red lips were parted ever so slightly when she looked back and began to slowly approach me. I knew what _that_ meant. Apparently my 'good night' wasn't over yet, after all.

Suddenly, she yelped, stumbling and lifting one of her stockinged feet off the floor. We both looked down at the floorboards, where the spoils of my little reappropriation were spilt and twinkling in the living room light. They must have been knocked out of the pouch I'd tucked in my cleavage when Joy had whipped me.

"Diamonds?" Jeanne asked, her disgust evident. All that yummy sensuality had completely evaporated. "Isn't that a little mundane, even for you?" She looked up at me through narrowed eyes. "Why not just rob a bank next time?" Squinting at me for a moment, she then turned away, stepping through the portal and sitting back down at the living room table. She briefly gathered some of the papers that had been blown about during our exertions.

As if nothing at all had happened, she then said coolly, "You can have the bed all to yourself tonight. I'd prefer to spare myself alcoholic stench of your breath."


	4. Chapter Three

It's All Relative

By Asynca, who is nauseous from all the domesticity and wants to get straight to the fighting and the drama (or some decent shagging at least). Ugh!

* * *

><p>~Three~<p>

* * *

><p>We had a well-established routine when it came to stand-offs.<p>

Firstly, I would pretend to be still asleep while Jeanne stomped around the apartment getting ready for work at some ungodly pre-dawn hour of the morning (privately, if I wanted to torture myself, I have a whole cosmic closet full of sexier items to do it with than sleep deprivation). She never went as far as to deliberately slam doors, but she would step so heavily on the floorboards that I expected to get up and see stiletto-shaped pocks in the parquetry.

After she'd gone, I'd turn on her laptop and read all her emails because she'd stupidly checked the 'remember me' option in the login screen. Really, after all these months living with me, you think she'd know better. That morning, I also decided it might be quite amusing to swap a few DVDs into the wrong cases, and, while I was at it, I also moved some of her carefully arranged vases slightly off centre. I recognized that perhaps the process was a little juvenile – but you've got to admit it's absolutely hilarious to watch the anally retentive pop a vein when their perfect little nexus of order is disturbed.

Basically the plan was that I would make Jeanne a romantic homemade dinner that would be ready by the time she got home from work.

That sounds fairly simple, doesn't it, especially for a witch with all manner of powers? Well, it turns out that I skipped that part in the contract I made with Madama Butterfly. I'm sure I could have negotiated for a Wicked Pie or a Mean Roast if I'd had the foresight to know I'd need to suck up to my partner at some point in the future. Unfortunately I didn't have power of the fifties housewife, so I'd need to rely on the powers of Jamie Oliver to explain food to the extremely ignorant.

The first video I googled showed Jamie holding up a tomato and asking a class of grade school students what vegetable it was. Since that was about the level I was aiming for, I clicked through to his website and chose a selection of dishes I thought gave me the least likelihood of setting the kitchen on fire again.

All that remained was acquiring the ingredients I needed. Now, I suppose it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to dip into Jeanne's stash of 'housekeeping' funds, but I wanted to avoid that silent, smug grin she would direct at me when she discovered I'd needed to use her money as I had none of my own. For the same reason, I ruled out simply wandering into the store in Purgatorio and taking what I needed. Jeanne had a dreadfully annoying way of always _knowing_ when I did something she disapproved of. I doubted the supermarket accepted payment in diamonds, either. However, the Americans have invented a fabulous way of converting goods of value into money totalling approximately ten percent of their actual worth.

It probably would have been good judgment to don civilian clothes as I left the house, but unfortunately I didn't care enough to bother.

Micky at Quik Cash didn't care either. In fact, I have it on reasonable authority that the first class service I routinely got there was based completely on my choice of clothing.

"Bayonetta," he leered as I entered, his eyes glued to my chest.

Not an unusual reaction to me, and somewhat useful for my purposes. "Micky," I greeted him, leaning on the counter to afford him a spectacular view of my cleavage. "I'm in rather a spot." I put one of the smaller diamonds I'd acquired during last night's excursion in front of him. "It's of terrible sentimental value to me, so I'm absolutely _desperate,_" I paused to allow him to imagine what sort of desperation I might be in, "to get a good price for it."

He swallowed. "I'll see what I can do," he said, zigzagging through the clutter behind the register to fetch the jewellery kit.

My little act must have been rather effective, because I left Quik Cash with a clean grand in my pocket, so to speak. I had a feeling that would probably be enough to purchase groceries with, even with current inflation.

As I often forgot, not everyone welcomed my hairsuit quite as warmly as horny male felons. Particularly not the local supermarket frequented by prim, proper Martha Stewart-types who invented a whole symphony of new disapproving sounds every time they laid eyes on me.

As I collected my basket from the front of the store, I winked at a woman who had stopped in one of the aisles to stare at me. She put her hand on to her heart as if she were in some state of shock, and continued with her shopping a shade of red similar to the tomatoes I went about selecting.

For some reason, however, children _always_ wanted to chat to me. I'm sure pest control companies could have made a fortune out of inventing some sort of spray-on child repellent.

"Hello," a small figure said, pulling on the hair dangling from my sleeves to get my attention. "I like your costume. I have one that's Batman."

I briefly fantasized about coating him in white foam until he spun on the floor and twitched like a fly. "Where's your mummy?" I asked him, putting him at about five years old. "I'm sure she wouldn't like you talking to someone like me."

He sighed, looking crestfallen. "Yeah."

"Maybe you should go and find her," I suggested, stepping away from him as he reached for one of my gold sigils.

As if on cue, a shrill voice called, "Spencer! I'm sick of this!"

He sighed again. I accidentally felt sorry for him.

Before I could act on that feeling, however, something swung past my head. I managed to dodge it – of course – but it sheered a lock of Spencer's hair. He put a hand up to the side of his head, a look of horror and confusion on his face, and started to cry.

I looked back towards the source and spotted three watery figures encroaching on me from the freezer section, all brandishing halberds.

I stared at them for a moment, trying to ignore the peels of sobbing behind me. Randomly attacking me in a supermarket, well, I couldn't really explain that. But at least I could explain why they had chosen me to attack and what they hoped to achieve. But very nearly slaying an _innocent child_? That behaviour was certainly not what I'd ever experienced from the Laguna. In fact, it defied every single fact I thought I knew about the whole flock of them.

While I was busy staring agape at them, one of them screeched and took another swing at me. I flipped out the way, rolling through a portal and reaching for my guns. Despite myself, I glanced back at Spencer to double-check the swing had been well-clear of him. It had been, and he had stopped crying and was staring at where I'd disappeared through the portal.

I turned back to the angels. "Are you out of your fucking minds?" I asked of them. "You could have killed him!"

They continued to advance on me as if I'd said nothing at all.

Ridiculous; I'd fix them. I vaulted off some shelving (breaking it, unfortunately) over the top of the three of them, shooting beneath me. When I landed, I called down a lovely black boot to join me. It had the unfortunately side effect of shattering a freezer cabinet, and several nearby figures darted away. Two of the angels, I dispatched rather quickly – the third retreated through the produce department, leaving behind him a trail of destruction as I tried to take him out. It was an absolute pleasure to strap him to a guillotine and take off that bloody crazy head of his.

When the fight was over, I destroyed the last remaining fruit table for good measure (there was no point in just _leaving_ it there, after all), and snuck back into the mortal realm to locate my basket full of shopping.

Somewhat frustratingly, there was no one manning the checkouts. In fact, everyone was standing around in small groups, crying and talking frantically to people on their cell phones. I followed their line of sight back to where the supermarket aisles lay in ruin. Well, I suppose it was warranted: it must be frightening for them to watch aisles spontaneously trash themselves. It didn't solve the problem of me trying to pay for my goods, though.

I located a store manager, who was busy trying to usher people out of what remained of the store. He gave me a strange look, but warned me the supermarket was unsafe and pushed me straight out the door_ with_ my full basket of ingredients, all unpaid for. So much for my concerns about how I was going to pay for the groceries.

Well, I thought, turning away from the supermarket and taking my basket with me, if they wouldn't _let_ me pay for them, Jeanne couldn't very well blame me for not paying for them.

I've always been of the opinion that accessories make the woman. So, in order to cook a lovely homemade dinner, it was of dire importance that I wear a cute little frilly apron. Luckily Jeanne had one hanging behind the pantry door back in our apartment. I put it on, spending far too much time posing in front of a mirror, with and without the hairsuit.

Eventually, I managed to get started on the meal, courtesy of YouTube and listening to that British lisp telling me exactly what to do and showing me how to do it. The process was much more fun than expected, possibly because early on in the piece the double-entendres started to shine through. "You take it firmly with one hand," he told me very matter-of-factly, "and feed it slowly inside the casing. Be careful you don't do it too fast, because then you'll spill too much of the lovely juice." I raised my eyebrows at the laptop, noting its widely applicable wisdom.

By the time I heard Jeanne's key fit into the front door, I'd cooked a suitably non-toxic dinner without setting anything on fire or smashing any cutlery – purposefully or accidentally. I was quite proud of myself, actually. Surely I'd be back in her good books now; perhaps she'd even give me a gold star and a note to take home to my parents.

I removed my hairsuit and perched on the counter with my legs crossed, in front of my fabulous creations.

However, when Jeanne came down the hallway, it was immediately obvious to me something was wrong. She had none of her usual swagger, and, while it was a comparatively small detail, there was a long run in one of her normally immaculate stockings. Additionally, she looked rather flustered.

Walking straight past me into the living room without so much as a single leer, she dumped her handbag and briefcase on one of the armchairs, and then flopped onto the couch. This was concerning for two reasons: firstly, Jeanne never dumped anything anywhere, and secondly, I was extraordinarily sexy at that very moment, and I'd been a good housewife and made her dinner. Ordinarily that would have had her positively launching herself at me.

Not one to be easily discouraged, I hopped down off the counter, and paraded over to her. "Hard day at work, darling?" I asked, mimicking a good little wife and kissing the crown of her head. I then posed beside the couch in a way that highlighted my naked hips.

She didn't even look up. "On the contrary, work was absolutely fine," she said. "It was just that on the way home, a _beloved _friend of ours paid me a visit."

I noted the emphasis. "Beloved?" Well, that made sense. "I suppose that explains why you're not interested in my little apron. You've climaxed already."

She smiled wryly without so much as a glance toward me, laying her head back against the couch and exhaling at length. "We've got to do something about this, you realize."

I looked back at my lovely dinner, getting cold on the dining room table. It smelt lovely, and, most importantly, it had taken me all day to coordinate. Trust those ugly monsters to ruin all my fun.

Jeanne was right, of course: the angels were behaving in a distinctly non-angelic manner, and that was potentially dangerous not only for us, but for mortals, as well. "Well, I had been hoping they were all a bit premenstrual and they'd go back to leaving us alone after a few days."

Jeanne sat up, stretching out her arm, which I noticed had a shiny purple bruise developing on her pale skin. "We should pay your friend Rodin a little visit," Jeanne said decisively. "I have a feeling he might have some insight into what's going on." She cocked her head at the TV cabinet, frowning. "Did you move my vases?"

Oh, come _on. That_ was what she noticed?


	5. Chapter Four

It's All Relative

By Asynca, she's alive, _she's ALIVE_! D:

~Four~

* * *

><p>Rodin had his back to us as we entered The Gates of Hell. "Well, look who's finally come to the dark side," he greeted us ever so politely. "Ladies."<p>

To my delight, Jeanne had to step over a catatonic drunk in order to actually enter.

"Charming place you have here," she commented dryly. It was the sort of tone you'd expect to hear from your mother-in-law about your cooking.

She wandered into the centre of the bar and posed there with her hands on her hips. It would have been a simply spectacular entrance if she hadn't changed out of her naughty little skirt and torn stockings into boring shapeless one-piece. To offset the horribly unexciting dress she had chosen a coat with the most _awful _oversized collar that looked as if its main purpose was to prevent her from licking her stitches.

Still, with legs like that, the collar wasn't the reason she was getting attention from the local petty villainy. Fortunately for me no one I recognised was in the crowd, which drastically reduced the number of threesomes I'd have to turn down in the next week.

"Looking for an after-work pick-me-up?" Rodin drawled, ignoring her unsavoury assessment of his bar. "Or perhaps some _real_ work?"

"On the contrary," she said, sounding more amused that disapproving. "I actually have _real_ work, the type where you don't kill innocent people or steal their belongings."

"Overrated," Rodin said. "Just ask your girlfriend."

I sashayed up to him. "I'll drink to that," I told him. He grinned and turned to mix me something delicious. "Besides," I told Jeanne as I leant indulgently on the bar, "the word 'innocent' isn't something I'd use to describe anyone I've been, shall we say, 'at odds with' lately."

"So," Rodin continued as he prepared me an alcoholic masterpiece. "I assume you're here about the position."

Jeanne folded her arms. "I thought I'd made it rather clear I wasn't in the market for further employment."

"Well, if looking after innocents is your thing, perhaps this job is the one for you," Rodin said cryptically, pouring my drink and sliding it the length of the bar.

I caught it and inspected. "Oh, Rodin," I took a sip, "a shaken martini, my _favourite._"

His grin displayed all his teeth. "I know you like it dirty, Baby."

Jeanne shot me a look that said: _You will shortly be telling me everything this man has ever done to you and then you will be sleeping on the couch for three or four decades._ I shrugged as innocently as I could, which tragically didn't seem to convince her.

She turned her attention back to Rodin. "The Angels," she said bluntly, clearly hoping to bypass his prophesizing. "This afternoon I had a rather unexpected visitor and I was hoping you might have some insight."

"As I was saying," he continued. "Can you imagine what a bank would be like if there was no managers? All those employees in charge of themselves?" He leaned forward on the bar toward Jeanne. "Able to walk out the door at any moment with all that cold, hard cash…?"

"Don't stop now, Rodin," I told him, lifting the cocktail to my lips with a grin. "I'm almost there."

Jeanne shot me that look again: make that _five_ decades on the couch. "Go on," she said to him.

"Well, think about it." He crossed his enormous arms. "How long do you think that cash would stay in those walls? That's what's going on in Paradiso at the moment: a million angels, all without anyone to answer to."

Jeanne had wandered over to the stone gargoyle at the edge of the bar, and stood back as she considered both it and what Rodin had just said. "So, what's the solution to all this chaos in Paradiso, then? Can't they simply gather and appoint a new leader?"

"The only people who could control the light and the Right Eye were the Lumen Sages," Rodin said, pouring a second drink for me into a clean glass before I'd even finished my first. He knew me so well, I thought, throwing the first cocktail into the very back of my throat. He waited until I was done. "They've already chosen their new leader."

He slid the cocktail across toward me.

I caught it and lifted it to acknowledge him, when I realised they were both staring at me.

"What?" I said, half-joking. "Do I have something in my teeth?"

"No," Jeanne said eventually to Rodin, not at all in answer to _my_ question. "That's can't possibly be the case."

"'Fraid so," Rodin told her, as if I wasn't even there. "Hope you're not, you know, too attached to her. And there is going to be a worm hole in The Big Apple without her particular talents available to the highest bidder." He chuckled to himself. "Poor Enzo is going to have to get a respectable job if he wants to make any money without her around."

I put my glass down and stood upright. "Without me around? I hope you two are just planning a nice holiday to somewhere tropical for me." Somehow, I didn't think that was likely to be the case.

"Cereza, listen to him," Jeanne told me, without even a trace of her usual annoyance or condescension. "A Lumen Sage needs to preside over Paradiso, and you killed the last Lumen Sage."

Her seriousness was quite unnerving. "I suppose they'll have to transition to democracy," I suggested, but only Rodin smiled in appreciation of my joke. "Besides, as I recall, technically we both killed Daddy Dearest."

"It doesn't matter who killed him," Jeanne said. "He was your father and you were an only child."

It dawned on me where they were both heading. My father, the last Lumen Sage made me the last person on earth who could lay any sort of claim to being one. The hilarious thing was that my allegiances were already rather firmly cemented in the opposition. "I'm a witch," I pointed out. "If they want to restore balance to heaven, I'm fairly certain that doesn't come about by putting a witch in charge."

Rodin shrugged. "Better a half-witch than no one at all."

Jeanne had always been rather fair-skinned, but she'd moved to an even paler shade of white. "It doesn't make sense," she said, more to herself than anyone else. "I'm certain they would have warned me."

Rather than engage with her in what was clearly a private conversation with herself, I tried a new string of logic on Rodin. "Well, unfortunately for Paradiso, my services have already been spoken for." I extended my butterfly wings momentarily for dramatic effect. "Madama Butterfly is rather fond of me, you see. I doubt she'd be prepared to release me from my contract."

"What's a contract with a single demon versus an eternal prophecy upheld by Paradiso and all the angels in it?" Rodin asked, making the answer to his question very clear. Then he fixed me with a stare that I could distinguish even through his heavy sunglasses. "Think about it. Forgiveness, eternal peace, your immortal soul back. Pretty tempting, don't you think?"

For a moment it was, but only because I really liked to try new things. "You left out the part where I have to swear off having any fun for all eternity. Plus I'd have to hang around with a bunch of horribly ugly angels. No thanks."

I rather preferred my current partner, actually. Through the whole of the last few exchanges, her eyes had been darting backward and forward in a way I'd come to recognise meant she was over-thinking something. "This was never part of the prophecy," she said aloud, finally emerging from being engrossed in her thoughts. "I'm certain I never heard anyone in the order talk about it being possible."

I had never given any weight to what the Umbran Elders had said, myself. They'd locked me up and made Jeanne – the very woman who was completely in love with me – my steward. That was only one of the countless other things I'd seen them handle poorly and misjudge. Personally I had no faith in their so-called 'wisdom'. "No offense, Jeanne, but it was the Lumen Sages that were the great Seers, not the witches." I turned my glass around in the bar absent-mindedly. "And as for the job in heaven? I'm not applying. I'm perfectly happy with my current position."

Rodin tipped his head. "I'm not sure you get a choice."

I raised my eyebrows. "Of course I get a choice." I stepped out from against the bar, walking toward Jeanne. "Let them come for me. More of them for us to kill." I posed beside her as we did going into battle, but she was too distracted to mirror me. I sighed.

"Not complaining, here," Rodin said. "You keep bringing their junk to me and I'm perfectly happy to keep supplying you with all the weapons you need to be good at your job."

Jeanne's lips were pressed in such a tight line I could hardly see her lipstick. "I'm glad you two have found time to make light of the situation." On second glance at her, I saw she had a hand out and was bracing herself on the bar. "I need to think about this."

Above ground over us there was some commotion happening. We all looked upward, as if looking toward the sound would make it clearer. There was a harmonic screech, which, in my experience, was the sound of angelic ass wanting to be kicked.

I scoffed. "Yes, this situation calls for immediate thinking," I said. "Come on, some actual action will make you feel much better." I began to stride toward the entrance.

She reluctantly followed me, but was stopped by Rodin. "You going to pay for her drinks?"

She didn't look like she was in the mood to argue with him. "Pay for them? Sorry, I don't carry any mortal souls or infant blood or whatever passes as currency in here."

He flashed her a grin. "We accept all major credit cards," he said. "As long as you don't mind if I sell the numbers online."


End file.
